


entropy

by megster



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Major Character Death (canon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 18:03:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1437574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megster/pseuds/megster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He falls in love probably right away, not that he would have known love at that age if it kicked him in the stomach. Or the heart, as it were.</p><p>He will always be in love with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	entropy

**Author's Note:**

> this is a fic that assumes that chuck and mako meet as children, which is not canon-compliant but we’re pretending it is. i think i got the ages right, but if not, pretend they are (or drop a line and i'll adjust accordingly). hope you enjoy! :)

He falls in love probably right away, not that he would have known love at that age if it kicked him in the stomach. Or the heart, as it were.

He will always be in love with her.

She is coiled energy always, a strange combination of serenity and ferocity existing within one slender body. She is steel, forged in tragedy and hardship, born from crumbling buildings and rising flames and cooled in the salty water of the uncaring sea.

Back then she was quiet, although not shy. It was the quiet of a predator before the final strike, although her final strike would not come for years.

He is a rebel without a cause, or he would have been if he had been born into happier times. As it is, he’s a rebel with a cause, and modeled into a perfect soldier, if not a perfect son.

*

They are eleven, and it’s raining the day they meet, and she does not smile once. He doesn’t either. They are not carefree children, not anymore (if they ever were), and smiles are wrung out of them carefully and deliberately rather than freely given.

Not to say they don’t laugh in the way children do. Growing up together amidst soldiers and scientists and battle-scarred warriors is a shared experience that cannot be forgotten.

*

They are fourteen, and if life in a Shatterdome is hard for a child, it is even harder for a young adolescent, and when they come together, in a fumble of lips pressed to one another’s and held hands and nervous smiles—well.

“My father,” she says to him, solemn, despite her twinkling eyes.

“As if he doesn’t expect it,” he says, heart pounding.

Young love is exhilarating in a singular way.

*

They are fifteen, and falling out of love is as natural (more natural, he thinks), than falling into it.

It’s gradual and heartbreaking but he’s almost relieved when it finally falls apart.

After relief comes anger, because the ease they’ve always had with each other has dissipated, and he misses it. He thinks maybe she misses it too, because he sometimes catches her glancing at him, feathery-light looks that almost burn, because her gaze has never been anything but piercing.

*

They are sixteen, and he is the youngest Ranger in the Academy.

He has been raised for this, and taking his place in Striker Eureka feels like rightful ascension to a throne of sorts.

If it is at his father’s side… He never expected the world to make it easy for him. It hasn’t given him a break yet.

(Except for Mako. Mako is the only break the world has ever allowed him. They’re talking again, and she’s practically an engineering prodigy, but chafing at the bit to pilot. He thinks she would be an exceptional pilot, with her quiet intensity and quick reflexes and quicker mind. All the same, he understands Pentecost’s reluctance to let her train.)

*

They are seventeen and the sea has swallowed Yancy Becket whole.

Mako asks him to spar with her, stubborn Mako with her eyes snapping and her jaw set.

“Marshall Pentecost—” he says, but he knows he’s lost the battle when she simply repeats the question, words dropping from her lips like lead.

“Okay,” he says.

They spar every morning thereafter, Chuck dragging himself out of bed an hour early.

Every strike he lands, every blow he takes, he thinks, _I love you, I love you, I love you_.

Mako one day catches his hand after they spar and says, “The universe tends towards entropy,” and he knows what she’s really saying is, “We never would have worked.”

It stings, it does, but in a way, he’s glad. She didn’t say “I never loved you.”

*

They are eighteen, and he hasn’t spoken to his father outside of the Drift in two weeks, and Mako comes running to his quarters, her face alight, and he knows right away.

“Congratulations,” he says, and hugs her, feeling her joy. He wonders if she knows that he’s still saying _I love you_ , even now.

She pulls away from him, looks at him, smiling. She brushes his face with a gentle hand, and yes, of course she knows.

She always did.

*

They are twenty, and Chuck has been piloting for four years and doesn’t love it any less, although he still doesn’t talk to his father, not really.

Mako has not yet persuaded Marshall Pentecost to let her pilot, because he maintains that she has not found the right partner. Chuck is selfishly glad, although he’s sorry when he senses the frustration, the impatience threatening to brim over.

If it was anyone but Mako, they would have snapped already, but Mako is always impeccably in control.

*

She is twenty-two and he is twenty-one, and Raleigh Becket comes back and is drift-compatible with Mako, and he hates the son-of-a-bitch, and the world is ending.

She is twenty-two and he is twenty-one, and he is still in love with her.

She is twenty-two and he is twenty-one, and kaiju start spilling from the breach.

She is twenty-two, and in her first drift she chases the R.A.B.I.T. and Chuck is terrified for her, angry at Raleigh, who should have helped her, and he can hardly breathe.

He is twenty-one, and the Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha fall, and Chuck stands on top of Striker Eureka with his father and shoots flares into Leatherback’s eyes. _I’m going to die I’m going to die and I love her I love her I love her_.

She is twenty-two, and she has always had perfect timing, and Lady Danger crashes into the sea.

He is twenty-one, and Mako’s father looks at him levelly and calls him his father’s son, and Chuck Hansen has never been a liar or a coward, and he takes the compliment for what it is and looks his father in the eyes and tells him everything that he has ever wanted to tell him, and stoops to Max for a long moment because tonight he is going to die.

She is twenty-two and he is twenty-one, and they’re so young to be stopping an apocalypse, but they have no choice.

She is twenty-two and he is twenty-one, and Striker Eureka and Lady Danger fall into the sea side-by-side and as they sink to the breach all he can think is that if anyone can save the world it’s Mako and _I love her I love her I love her_.

Her father is beside him in the cockpit, and he knows, he must know how Chuck feels, but he says nothing, because if there’s anything Stacker Pentecost understands, it’s how amazing his daughter is, and how easy it is to love her.

 _We are not going to die_ , Stacker tells him firmly, _We are going to deploy the bomb and we are going to cancel this apocalypse. I said it then, and I’m saying it now, and I believe it._

Chuck knows he isn’t lying, and he believes they can live through this, but he also thinks that he won’t. The world has never cut him a break (except for Mako and their friendship), and it isn’t going to start now.

She is twenty-two and he is twenty-one, and between their two jaegers they are going to save the world, and for one moment he believes in it with everything he has, and then Striker Eureka takes a blow from Slattern that shakes the earth and could have shattered his bones.

And Striker has been brought to its figurative knees, and it’s still operating largely through force of will, and Stacker says, “Will you help me override—“ and Chuck knows exactly what he’s asking, he’s saying _Will you die to stop the kaiju_ and the answer is _yes_ , the answer has always been _yes_ , and all he can think is _I love her I love her I love her_.

Lady Danger turns to rescue them and Chuck thinks, no no no because maybe Mako still has a chance, and that fool Raleigh, with his courage and natural instinct to help those in danger is insisting they’ll reach Striker in time, and god, he can’t hate Raleigh anymore, has never really hated him, and Stacker orders Lady to keep away.

And they do, because the needs of the many—

Chuck asks Stacker what they’re going to do, even though he already knows, has known from the start, and Stacker says that they’re going to clear a path and Chuck takes a deep breath and says, “My father always said… he said if you have a shot, you take it,” and he’s not talking to Stacker, not really, he’s talking to his father who must be listening in, willing him to understand the _I love you_ and the _Thank you_ and the _I’m sorry for everything you’ve taught me so much I’m so sorry it has to be this way but I’m glad to do it I’m proud to be your son I’m so so proud to be your son_.

And Stacker nods at him and there’s gratitude and pride and resolve.

And Chuck says, “It was a pleasure, sir,” and means it, and then he hears Mako’s voice, telling her father goodbye, and he’s selfish, he’s so selfish, but he hopes that when she says “You’ll always be with me,” she’s talking to both of them.

And at that moment Stacker detonates the bomb and—

If he thinks about it, really thinks about it, he knows that she never would have loved him, not in that way, not in any universe. She calls him her brother, and he knows she is sincere (she always is), and he treasures it and the world is caving in and he hears Mako’s laugh in his mind and sees her shining eyes and _I love you I love you I love you_.

*

Mako is twenty-two and Chuck was twenty-one, and the breach is sealed, and later that week when she falls into Raleigh’s arms, she finds herself thankful that he, of all people, knows what it is to lose a brother.


End file.
